


I Guess We Just Begin Again

by theshipsfirstmate



Series: So Now What [1]
Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: F/M, Post-Finale Fic, The Beginning, so now what series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-29
Updated: 2016-05-29
Packaged: 2018-07-11 00:02:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,840
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7014007
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theshipsfirstmate/pseuds/theshipsfirstmate
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>post-S4 finale Olicity. What happens after “Not a chance.”</p><p>"It’ll be time to go soon, time to figure out what comes next and start cleaning everything up. But for now, it’s just the two of them, and they’re still standing."</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Guess We Just Begin Again

_A/N: Fic-wise, I’m kind of loving what this finale set up in terms of Olicity and where they are with themselves and each other. So, my plan is pretty similar to what I did with the[Sight of the Sun](http://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Farchiveofourown.org%2Fworks%2F4398218%2Fchapters%2F9986597&t=YjM3NTMzYThjNTJjMmZhZWIzMGEwOWY1YmZmNGQ3NWU5MTVhYTM2ZSw5SmlFMWtaOA%3D%3D) series last year, loosely connected one-shots that exist in the same timeline. Only instead of road trip reconnection, it’s rebuilding the city and teaming up on missions and job stuff and oops-did-we-fall-back-to-domesticity-how-did-that-happen reconnection. I’m so very psyched._

_Title from “[So Now What](http://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DR7-DjDF1MRM&t=NGRiMzhiZWY3NDUwYTZhYjhlYjZkMjdhNWE2ZjAxMTYxYmRmNDBkZCw5SmlFMWtaOA%3D%3D)” by The Shins._

**I Guess We Just Begin Again**

They stand there, in front of the glass cases that house the alter egos of Star City’s heroes, past and present, for what feels like hours but is probably only a few fraught minutes. Felicity isn’t really aware of anything but the itch that starts in the center of her palm before working its way out to the tips of her fingers.

This time last year, they were driving into the sunset, her hand tracing over his on the gearshift of the Porsche until he finally had to pull them over onto a deserted side road. Oliver had bolted from the car, stalked around to her side to help her from her seat, pressed her lower half against the door he closed behind her, and kissed her until her knees gave out.

He hadn’t let it go farther than that, though, Felicity remembers vividly, with a little smile twitching at the corners of her mouth. She had protested in earnest, more than ready to get publicly indecent after the steamy warm up, but Oliver’s head was full of romantic ideas about beds and candles and things being done the right way.

(In the end they settled for two out of three, because there weren’t any candles at the crappy motel ten miles down the road.)

Now, the whole thing feels like a lifetime ago. If she’s honest with herself, it practically was.

It had taken a long time for Felicity to accept that Oliver was done running, and even longer to believe that he would stay, and stay with her. It was a massive shift, and she had thought it would be a permanent one. That her hard-fought domestic bliss would implode just as her father and Cooper reappeared in her life, in rapid succession, was almost Dickensian in its tragedy.

But while the Ghosts of Disappointing Men Past and Even Further Past were almost exactly as she remembered them, dangerous and self-absorbed to the point of destruction, Oliver was constantly evolving. He’s not the same man she met all those years ago, that much is undeniable. He’s come so far in fact that, when she lashed out at him after finding out about William, the hurtful accusations felt unfair, even through the cloud of his betrayal.

Oliver’s not like her father. And he’s not like Cooper. He’s not like anyone, really. The two of them are like nothing she’s ever known, and that’s never been clearer to Felicity than the past few weeks, as she’s tried to let him go for good.

“We didn’t say goodbye.” She breaks the silence between them almost unconsciously, with the thought that’s been branding itself on her brain since they diverted the warhead and she got a reprieve from the overwhelming awareness of her own mortality. “When we thought the bomb was going to hit, when we thought we might be running off to our deaths, we didn’t even say goodbye.”

“I…”

She doesn’t know exactly what Oliver’s going to say, but Felicity thinks she has a pretty good idea. _I couldn’t. I thought it would be too hard. I didn’t want to._ She cuts him off instead.

“I stared death in the face today, and I hated myself because I thought about how you were ready. You were ready to sacrifice yourself again, and I didn’t even get to say goodbye.”

Oliver’s brow furrows on the word “hated” and stays that way. She fights the urge to smooth it out with the tips of her fingers. “You saved the city, Felicity, the whole world even,” he marvels after a moment of heavy silence. “You did something I’ve never been able to do.”

That’s not what she needs to hear right now. Not while the city of Havenrock is still smoking ash. She can’t handle the macro view of her life at the moment, all she can manage is one moment, one person at a time, visceral feelings that can keep her feet on the ground. She wants to lace her fingers through his, god, she just wants to _touch_ him. Just for a second.

“Curtis talked about the night you came back, when we thought you were…” Felicity’s sentence ends on a tiny sob and Oliver snaps his mouth shut on a solemn nod, knowing he was just as affected as she was by their friend’s words. “Then I was ten seconds from colliding with a nuclear warhead, and all I could think about was you coming back down the stairs that night.”

She remembers a time when that was their worst day, remembers how her euphoric disbelief had been T-boned by his decision to side with Malcolm Merlyn, how she got Oliver back and lost him in the span of a few emotionally-fraught minutes in the Verdant alley. The whole feels far away now, almost trivial.

“I…I won’t,” he offers suddenly, seemingly out of nowhere. “I won’t say goodbye to you.”

She sighs a disappointed little huff. Same song, different verse. But he’s not done.

“If you’re staying,” he continues, in a voice she’s never heard before, “I’m _never_ saying goodbye to you again.”

Felicity sucks in a breath and turns to face him. He’s already looking at her, face set like stone, and when his gaze locks onto hers, she understands what he’s saying even before the explanation rumbles from deep in his chest.

“If I die, it won’t be something I planned.” She can’t help but flinch at that, and Oliver huffs out a little laugh without any humor behind it to give her a beat. “If I run, I…I mean, I feel like you’d be right there beside me.”

She nods, adamant to agree but a bit frozen in place, eyes stuck on his. There’s a little glint in his gaze, just like there was that night in the Christmas-colored gazebo, when her eyes had flitted between the joy on his face and the ring in his hands, mesmerized by both in near-equal measure.

“And if I ever get you back…” Felicity’s eyes slide closed almost unconsciously, and it seems to derail him. His jaw clenches when he bites off the end of his sentence. “I’m just…I’m never saying goodbye to you again.”

The implications of his words sink into her bones and suddenly Felicity is hit with the memory of looking into a mirror and seeing a woman in a wedding dress. Her eyes snap open, and she looks anywhere but at her would-be groom.

“It’s not about getting me back,” she hears herself admit. She’s all but certain he has her still, but she can’t quite bring herself to say that part out loud.

“Then what’s it about?” Oliver sounds weary, but not defeated. She realizes all too late that she’s allowing herself to hope again.

“I don’t know,” she admits, because it’s the truth. “It’s about me, probably, but I’m just not sure what to do with it.”

It’s his fault for looking at her with equal parts confusion and broken-hearted sympathy, his fault that she lets herself add, “I don’t want to miss you like this.”

In some other universe, in some alternate timeline, this is the moment the finally fall back together, swept up in the moment and the magnetism. But there’s still a mountain between them that they need to take their time tearing down. They need to decide what to carry and what to leave in the past. Felicity needs to admit to him that she’s worried about how much she’s going to miss her mother. She needs to ask him about the video message she overheard him recording for his son on the day she walked out of the loft. She needs to tell him what it was like to meet her father for the second time. She needs to know if she heard the truth about Andy Diggle.

They need put things back together and bring the city back to life, to get the public and private sector back on track, to keep an eye on Thea from afar and plot a way to get John back. There’s so much to do. Together.

It’s like Oliver can hear her monologuing internally, and he silences her the way her learned early on in their months together, reaching over to take her hand, entwining their fingers and squeezing gently. It eases Felicity’s craving for his touch for just a moment, before igniting the flames into full-on desire. She wonders if he can feel her trembling.

“No more goodbyes means no more running off to die, you know that, right?” she asks, pretending to tease him even though she’s sure the shake in her voice gives her away. “Especially given your brand new title. Mayors in this city have worse luck than Hogwarts’ Defense Against the Dark Arts instructors.”

He gives her a look that’s more smitten than exasperated, and for a second she’s back at their house in Ivy Town, rearranging their DVD collection and making him take studious notes on required viewing.

“I watched you get sworn in earlier.” She stumbles over the admission, worrying at the last minute that it’s somehow revealing too much. “On the uh, on the live stream.”

“There was a live stream?” Oliver’s face is impassive, but she knows he’s onto her.

“I mean, really any camera can live stream…if you just ask it nicely,” Felicity mumbles, feeling the familiar flush bloom across her cheeks.

He smiles at her, tentative and small at first, before his face splits open on an elated look of hope and disbelief. It reminds her of the first time she had made him grin almost five years ago, punching holes in his terrible alibis as he crowded the doorway of her IT office.

“It feels right.” She means his mayoral appointment, but doesn’t bother stammering her way through an embarrassed clarification, letting her stomach does a full flip as he squeezes her hand tight and she admits the double meaning to herself. “Congratulations, you deserve it.”

“I don’t know what I deserve, but I’m thankful for what I’ve got.” Oliver’s face goes back to serious, but his voice sounds like Saturday morning, easy and euphoric.

It’ll be time to go soon, time to figure out what comes next and start cleaning everything up. But for now, it’s just the two of them, and they’re still standing. 

Maybe this is how they do it, hand-in-hand, moment by moment. Maybe this is how they begin again.


End file.
